NOAA
REACHES A CRITICAL MILESTONE IN U.S. TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM EXPANSION

April
28, 2006 — NOAA announced today that
it has reached an important milestone in expanding the U.S.
tsunami warning system and is better equipped to detect a tsunami
and alert communities of the impending danger. (Click NOAA illustration
for larger view of Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis,
or DART, buoy. Click here
for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.”)

"This
marks an important phase in strengthening the U.S. tsunami warning system,
which was accelerated following the December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster,"
said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad
C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and
atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "All facets of NOAA's tsunami
program—from research to operations—have been expanded.
The result is a nation more prepared to act should a tsunami threaten
our shores."

NOAA received
$17.2 million in supplemental funding in Fiscal Year 2005 and $9.67
million in Fiscal Year 2006 to expand the U.S. tsunami warning system.
The Fiscal Year 2007 budget requests approximately $21 million to complete
the plan.

"NOAA
has more than 40 years of experience operating an effective tsunami
detection network and alerting the public of all hazards. One of our
first achievements in enhancing the tsunami warning system was expanding
the warning centers' scope of services to provide coverage to the U.S.
Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and
eastern Canada," added Lautenbacher.

Other tsunami
warning system expansion milestones, which NOAA has committed to complete
by today, include:

New tsunami
impact forecast models for nine major U.S. coastal communities at high
risk for tsunamis. The NOAA Research models are used to create inundation
and evacuation maps for emergency managers and to help NOAA's warning
centers forecast tsunamis. Ten models have been completed with seven
additional areas underway, with the goal of expanding the geographical
coverage of NOAA's Forecast Modeling System to cover a total of 75 U.S.
coastal areas, establish international modeling standards and continue
improvements to existing forecast models.

Improvement
of the quality and accuracy of the long-term archive of tsunami events.
NOAA's Satellite and Information
Service global database includes information on nearly 2,000 tsunamis
from 2000 B.C. to present and is used to identify regions at risk, validate
the models, help position detection sensors and prepare for future events.
NOAA has quality assured/quality controlled data for 75 percent of the
tsunamis that have impacted U.S. coasts and 50 percent of the most deadly
global tsunamis. This work entails identifying and documenting the source
of past tsunamis; date, time and magnitude of earthquakes; maximum water
heights; deaths; and damage.

Installation
of nine of 16 new sea-level stations by the NOAA Ocean Service, which
has also upgraded 20 of 33 sea-level stations. These automated stations
record water level in one-minute intervals, then transmit that data
via satellite to the tsunami warning centers. These data become more
critical as a tsunami nears the shore. The completed network will consist
of 49 stations.

Expansion
of the NOAA Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis network
from six to 15 DART buoy stations. The stations provide real-time tsunami
detection as the waves travel across the open ocean. The original six
were all located in the Pacific. The current network consists of ten
DART stations in the Pacific and five in the Atlantic/Caribbean. All
newly installed stations are a more robust DART II with advanced two-way
satellite communication. NOAA expects the network to total 39 DART II
buoy stations by the end of March 2008 (32 in the Pacific and seven
in the Atlantic Basin).

Recognition
of 29 communities as TsunamiReady by the NOAA National Weather Service.
NOAA hopes that over the next year, another 20 communities will pursue
TsunamiReady—a program that helps communities to prepare evacuation
plans, enhance communications and heighten awareness of tsunamis for
both residents and visitors.

NOAA, an
agency of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national
safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related
events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal
and marine resources.

Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS),
NOAA is working with its federal partners, 61 countries and the European
Commission to develop a global network that is as integrated as the
planet it observes, predicts and protects.